Ametherisse

Square shoulders. Bracing breath. Amethyst ran down her mental list of preparations as she came to the towering doors of the guild hideout. They stood at twice her height, slabs of oak reinforced with iron and fitted within a sturdy frame built into the surrounding cavern’s structure.

After a brief hesitation, she knocked. A small, barred section of the door slid open, a window she hadn’t realized was there, and a narrowed pair of sharp, brown eyes peered out. They glanced up, addressing someone else nearby. “Thought the patrols were returning early. It’s a newcomer.” He looked straight at Amethyst again. “State your business.”

“Dry your eyes, Mother,” Amethyst recited.

The pair of eyes widened slightly, one brow raising above them. “For death is often just.” The panel snapped shut, and a series of clicks followed before the door opened. On the other side, the guard held onto the handle and waited for her to step in. His tanned face suggested that this wasn’t his usual duty, and with the dark brown of his hair and the broad but sharp planes of his nose, it was a safe bet that he was Esdathrin. All the tautness of his skepticism gathered between his brows while the rest of his face relaxed with ease, alert but far from anything resembling fear.

Amethyst stepped in. Beneath her cloak, a hand lingered on her dagger’s hilt. There were no introductions, in their place a gesture from the guard to follow. As they walked in silence down the dim corridor, she thumbed the carving of a snake wrapped around a jasmine sprig, a nail catching on the intricate grooves of the scales.

She glanced up at the guard, taking in his features more closely as lantern light flickered over them. His face lacked the suppleness of youth, though it lacked the telling lines of middle age as well. If she had to guess in years, she couldn’t. Most where she came from wouldn’t have such changes in appearance until their fifth century. She had only been in Nelthemar for an octourne—the past eight weeks consisting of a summer that harshened more by the day. Humans were a strange thing altogether, from their brash nature to the way a mere decade aged them.

After following an endless stretch of stone walls, they stopped at a door on the right. The guard reached out and knocked, stirring footsteps on the other side. Warm candlelight spilled into the corridor as the door opened to a brighter space. A man stood in the threshold, crimson eyes sliding up and down Amethyst’s height before fixing on the guard. “You don’t bring friends often, Silas. And certainly never Dronvari ones.”

The guard—this Silas cracked a slight smirk. “Ah—you know I prefer to keep my acquaintanceships well outside these walls. This one is not mine. She invoked the plea of weeping, so I give her to you.”

The man in the doorway regarded Amethyst more closely this time. She returned his scrutiny, noting aside from his crimson gaze the beige-gray complexion and the slight point of his ears. Dronvari, like herself, but from the thick beard and loose, dark curls of his hair, Esdathrin too. He stepped aside to make way. “Come in, then.” Amethyst entered while her guardian moved along.

With a soft click, the door closed behind them. Amethyst followed as the presumed guild leader moved further into the room and stopped in front of his desk. He did not take a seat, nor did he offer her one. Arms folded across his chest, he toyed with something in his hand, a small wooden cube no larger than the tip of his thumb. He tossed it aside, only speaking once the clatter on the desk’s surface ceased. “I trust it was no accident that you learned the plea and spoke it to our doorkeeper. State your purpose and pray I find it sufficient.”

“I think you’ll find it sufficient, hene-thrinari.” She paused there, testing, and indeed his lips drew thin at the word. Half-man. So he was not all Dronvari, but enough to recognize the tongue. Her gaze dropped to the die he’d thrown onto the desk before snapping to his face again. “I seek refuge.”

“Refuge,” repeated the presumed guildmaster. “Refuge from what entity that you’ve no doubt led to my doorstep already? The Noth Dozrin?”

“You prejudge me.”

“I prejudge any Dronvari stranger who comes knocking.”

“Does half your blood not flow with the water of Kurux?”

The half-elf drew in a slow, controlled breath. “You insult me with your impudence. You, with your pureblood bearing, accent thick with the Gray and playing at innocence—the negligence I would require not to assume you come with the Dozrin in tow borders on suicidal.”

“And if I were Dozrin? What then?”

The guildmaster did not let that question daunt him, his flat expression still unchanging. Hands behind his back, he slowly stepped closer to her until there was barely a foot between them. Leaning in, he studied her face—then pressure circled her wrists, and her back slammed against a hard surface. All the air from her lungs hissed out between clenched teeth, her eyes clamping shut as pain shot through her ribs.

Something cool pressed against her neck, a familiar sharpness she’d felt hundreds of times. She sucked in air, careful to direct her breath through her chest to avoid pressing her throat closer to the blade. Then she laughed, a bitter, amused little huff. Only when the steel pushed harder against her skin did she stop, but her smirk remained. Her cloak had fallen open, revealing the dagger secured at her hip. Recognition glinted across the half-elf’s eyes as he glanced down at it.

“What if you are, indeed. I suspect you’ll not like the answer—but I will give it to you if you fail to supply a reason why I shouldn’t.”

Amethyst scoffed as he let up on the blade to let her speak. “I would have done so without you taking it upon yourself to catch me off my wits and restrain me. I will start with this: a friend of mine says you owe him a favor. Aurelio. He was kind enough to pass the boon to me—or perhaps you had nothing of interest for him to collect before he heads back to Grimros.”

“I do not make deals with Dozrin agents, regardless of any name you might toss in my direction. Aurelio is aware of this. You can tell him I decline whatever favor you’d ask of me.”

“And if I am no longer Dozrin, and the favor I request is refuge from them?”

Only then did the guildmaster take pause, but he did so with a sneer. “That changes nothing. Harboring their fugitives helps them just as well by making you a stationary target. Do you think I’m unaware that they’ll send hunters? It matters not which nest of theirs you crawled out of—they would cross the continent twice over to find you.”

“And if they do, I will stand and fight with your guild. I am Dozrin trained, but I cannot fight them alone. In the meantime, I will lend any skills you need, be it blade or menial. The last thing I would dare to offer in exchange for my harborage is dead weight.”

The guildmaster drew back, hovering as he searched her face. Then he stood fully. “And pray tell why Aurelio couldn’t source you protection from within his own network?”

Amethyst pushed herself up, perching on the edge of the desk. “He risks his neutrality. There exist delicate arrangements between him and the Dozrin which promise benefit to both parties and ensure destruction upon any breach. From what I understand, your guild has no such concordance with them—you prefer complete avoidance.” She brought her hand to her throat, the blade’s sting still lingering there.

His response was a tired scoff, and although she was very sure he wanted to order her off the desk, he clenched his teeth and moved on instead.

“Ghol have mercy.” He blinked heavily, taking a step closer so that he was looking down at her. “You want our protection? Very well. You’ll have it. But you will be under close supervision. You will work and train during waking hours and sleep in our holding cells until you’ve proven this isn’t some elaborate scheme.”

“I accept your terms.” Amethyst grinned, leaning forward on her hands. “So long as you have violet rice spirits sent to my cell every Srendor.”

The guildmaster spared her humor not even a twitch of his lips. “We are not a merchants’ inn.”

“I jest, half-blood.”

“And you will call me Guildmaster.”

“As you like.” She hopped down from the desk, feet landing on the wood floor with a quiet pat. “And today? Where does my benevolent jailor see fit that I start?”

“You will acclimate yourself with your cell. My assistant will show you to it. Objections?”

“None.”

“Good.” He took a step back. “I believe I’ve not asked your name yet.”

“You have not. I am called Amethyst.”

“That is not a Dronvari name.”

She laughed, one brow darting up. “Forgive me, Guildmaster. It is what I am called. I would not ask you for a different name unless you gave it freely.”

A knock came at the door. A woman’s voice, low and urgent, resonated through the wood. “Is everything all right in there, Vethirn? Silas just—”

“Everything is fine, Avara. But do come in. I’ve a task for you.”

Avara was a sight, a thing of understated beauty with stern brown eyes and long, thick waves as she entered the room with hands clasped in front of her stained apron. Somewhere around Silas’ age, and Esdathrin the same. Amethyst stood still and attentive, letting the other woman get her fill of her appearance in like. If everyone here was going to study her like an arcane trinket, she would have to get used to it.

“You were in the middle of afternoon medicines,” Vethirn observed. “You could have finished your rounds before coming to me.”

“Ears of Vildes, I could have!” Avara scoffed. “You truly imagined I would learn of a Dronvari stranger entering your office and keep on my merry way to tend to two idiots with scuffed elbows? Lossan and Beldroth are recovered enough to bark and bicker; they’ll survive my detour.” She groaned into a sharp, short exhale. Amethyst recognized well a woman who stretched herself far too thin. “What are your orders?”

“You will show our guest to an empty cell and inform the kitchen staff that she is to be fed until further notice. I will find work for her in the meantime.”

“Very well. It shall be done.”

Vethirn nodded. “Good. And next time, you need not hurry when you’re already preoccupied. This isn’t our ramshackle hideaway of years past. That old habit of yours will shred you into a heap of rags before late.” His eyes fixed on Amethyst as he gave a jerk of his chin toward Avara. He rounded the corners of his desk to make his way to his chair.

That left the two women to leave in silence, returning to walk the lantern-lit stretch of corridor to the space Amethyst would call home for now. It was far from the first time that such a place would be a dungeon cell.